


Quiddity

by letsgobacktoMidnight



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Angst, Blood, F/M, Fluff, Halloween One Shot, Werewolf Hanzo, Witch Mercy, healing arrow, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-17 00:39:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12353805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letsgobacktoMidnight/pseuds/letsgobacktoMidnight
Summary: An outsider liker herself, he lives far beyond the village border. In the forest, nearly at the distance she lives in her small shack. A wolf pelt decorates his head, a dark fur creature. The hunter carries his bow and arrows, and rarely speaks to her.





	Quiddity

He first came to her for a wound slashing up his arm. The sword strike is plain to her, but he offers no explanation. Quietly, he asks for her aid.

She knows he knows the truth about her.

An outsider like herself, he lives far beyond the village border. In the forest, nearly at the distance she lives in her small shack. A wolf pelt decorates his head, a dark fur creature. The hunter carries his bow and arrows, and rarely speaks to her.

After she heals him, he doesn’t return for several days for her to reexamine the wound. He will live without her checking over the healing process, but curiosity gets the better of the witch. Determined, she gathers a few herbs and charms before beginning her search for him.

His home is not as far as she first thought, but he is standoffish when first rapping her knuckles on his door. Greeting her with sharp demands of her leaving, she bristles and promptly informs him of her only needing to make sure he hasn’t died from infection.

The short conversation is hot and sharp, and ends with a door in the witch’s face. Her lips twitch to utter a curse of always having a leaking roof, but decides to place the jars of natural remedies at his threshold and turn back to where she came.

It’s foolish of her to think a solitary creature like him would accept her presence.

A week passes in quiet study of her books and attempts at different concoctions. A few nights a wolf howls somewhere in the woods, but disappears before the disturbance is too bothersome. Healing spells for the plague or heavy fevers dance upon her tongue silently. The autumn air turns the forest red and orange, a brief moment of a raging overhead red sea before death begins stripping the branches. Thoughts of the hunter edge at her mind, but anger flares up at his last impression. It is nothing for her to fret over.

At least a monthly trip, she’ll travel to the village for ingredients and items she cannot obtain herself in the woods. Her cloak hides her shoulders and a hat tops her head to lessen her visibility, but she can only do so much. Some of the children will throw rotten fruit her way, and people will scurry out of her path, but no one has laid a hand on her. They have their suspicions, but nothing enough to spur them to hanging an innocent girl in their midst.

Taking her items, she is quick to return to the woods edge. The sun is just setting. Her home is a great distance away, and though she could magically shorten the trip, being cautious is preferred over saving daylight.

When she first steps on the worn dirt path, she breathes easily. The earthly breeze pulling at the dying leaves gives comfort no other place can. Before the forest can tuck her away from the village’s view, a presence startles her in between the trees.

The hunter emerges at her demand of who hides. Still cloaked in a fur hood, his bow is tethered to his person as he silently comes to her.

“I was just returning home.” He speaks, deep and resonating but no lingering heat traces his words.

“I am too.” She says, shifting her bag and cloak against her shoulders. “Will that disturb your evening if we walk together?”

Her tone is sharp, rightfully so but his gaze remains unreadable as they begin their travel. It’s quiet, save for the creatures of the woods chirping, but it’s not a fearful or uncomfortable setting. Many men she has stood wary of, but the hunter is not threatening. When they come upon her door, she asks to see his arm.

Lifting his sleeve, he reveals the healing scar tissue and the lingering scent of one of her herbs concoctions upon his skin. Her approval is given, and he leaves her with a simple nod before descending through the trees and into his own home.

The days carry on with her usual chores and magic spells. The howling at night becomes a constant thing, but only for a few minutes. When sitting in front of a fireplace, the fire spins the image of the red paint on the hunter’s cheek. It’s a silly thought that makes her breathe out slowly, but she takes it with her to bed.

When another return to the village is required, she first goes to the hunter’s home. He answers, looming in the doorway but he does not incite an argument. Feeling the wind change, she asks if he needs anything she could retrieve. Although he denies her offer, he is traveling as well, and will occupy her to the village’s edge.

The same quiet begins to envelop them, but she bashes it away with a few questions. He gives simple answers, often vague and nonspecific but it helps her at least piece together his person. Stalking wolves and other large animals, he takes the meat and provides for himself. On the side he’ll sell the pelts and make a few coins. It’s not much, but it’s equivalent to what he knows about her.

At the edge of the first few homes leading to a cobblestone street, she stops him before he goes on his way.

“My name is Angela Ziegler.” She says, letting the unspoken question burn on her tongue.

He faces her, before giving a small bow. “Hanzo Shimada, at your service.”

Tucking the cloak tighter over her shoulders, she speaks a soft thank you before he turns away. Into the forest and away from her flustered form. Chastising herself as she approaches the village, it’s ridiculous how soft she becomes at the smallest gesture of kindness. She knows better than to let her guard down.

He meets her once again at the edge of the woods. Quiet, save for a few sentences or comments about the wildlife in the forest. It becomes a silent agreement of journeying down the windy road together. One night, she makes stew and carries it to the hunter’s house. More than likely he’s been living on simple meat and bread but a few herbs and spices make any night lovely and a hot broth warms all tummies.

He opens his home to her and she feels a soft honor grow in her chest. They eat, and talk about the stars and how his hunting is going as the days grow colder. He does not ask about her magic or strange concoctions, she doesn’t question the wolf pelt always on top of his head.

Standing in the doorway, shadows flicker on both their faces as he insists he walk her home. He stands too close. Fur, musk and the smallest hint of pinewood wrap around his person. Her cloak is already on her shoulders, and her hat is just barely donned.

“Angela,” he says. The very few times he spills her name along his lips makes her settle something inside her chest. A comfort.

“You are kind, Hanzo.” She smiles, tipping her head to hide under the brim of her hat. “But I assure you, there are very few things more dangerous than I.”

“I know.”  Still tight with tension, but his confidence in her is unwavering.

The flames dance on the red paint against his cheeks, throwing his irises into glints akin to wolves in the distance night. The fur pelt still frames his shoulders but can’t hide the lingering gaze in his eyes.

In an act she never saw herself committing, her fingers reach across the shadows of the flames. Slowly, her forefinger touches the worn pinky of his hand. Ready for his rejection, she holds her breath.

Just as gradually, his hand wraps around her fingers. Intertwined, a rope connecting their wandering souls as the stable warmth floods her palm. She breathes out, and leans into the gentle touch of his on her cheek.

It is like the ocean moving with the tide, or flowers blooming in the spring. Slow, but happening before one can consider it done. His kiss tastes like clove as he moves slowly against her. Gently, he moves the sun burning in her rib cage. Her lips hold his, and they part.

She breathes as they share the same air.

“There is solitude here among the trees,” she whispers, “but I find myself wanting you.”

Her walk home is a blur of thoughts. The hunter is in her veins, but her blood is warm. No howls occupy her. It’s quiet until she slips inside her door, and it promptly disappears. Howls echo against the full moon for a stretch longer than the usually session, before settling into the silent of the forest.

She dreams of him that night and a wolf pelt covering both their bodies in the flickering firelight.

During the gray morning, when fogs still lingers in between the trees, frantic knocking wakes her. A villager begs for her help, telling of his sick child, near close to death. The people are afraid of her, until one of their own is dying. Still, she goes with him.

But his beloved wife is already dead.

The man knows she can heal, that death’s touch can be erased with a few of her words. The man’s children wait anxiously in the house, wanting the strange women to help their mother. Whispering foreign words along her tongue and moving her staff, the woman slowly comes back to the land of the living. Alive and well.

The man is fearful, but grateful. He presses what few gold coins he has into her palms, before telling her to leave. She is promptly out the door, tugging her cloak and hat close over her skin.

People wait on the street, leaning forward to know what happened. The news of the death must have already spread over the street. Ducking her head, she tries to get through, but a man grabs her arm.

“What did you do, witch?” He demands. More people press close as she tries to rip away from the tight grip digging into her flesh.

“Let go of me,” she orders, but another man grabs her.

It’s a mob before she can think to use her magic. More hands grab her, as voices shout that she brought the man’s wife back to life. Someone shouts that the devil is loose inside her. _Witch_ becomes a chant, and her hat and cloak are torn off of her. As she struggles, her staff is ripped from her fingers.

“Hang her, hang her!” A rally rises up among the fearful and ignorant men as the witch tries to settle them with reason. The gold coins are lost to the dirt as people begin dragging her away.

“A trail by tomorrow’s first light!” A leader cries out, gaining the approval of the frenzied people.

"Stop, please!” She cries out, but her pleads are drowned in the chaos. In a blur of shoving and dragging, she is taken to the village’s cell. A small rock shack with cold chains and only a small window of light. The door is bolted shut when they first approach, but is unlocked quickly.

She tries to speak again, to reassure them she isn’t of the devil when a man strikes her cheek. The flesh flares up in a sharp sting before she is thrown inside the dirty cell. She already feels the broken blood forming a bruise on her cheekbone.

The door shuts with a reinforced echo of finality. After all the years she’s been careful, cautious of her ways of magic, she dies only after saving a woman’s life. She doesn’t rise off the ground, fingers inching for her staff and cloak. The cold cell freezes her bare shoulders but cools the painful pulse in her cheek. Leaning against one wall, pressing her skin against it, her mind is stuck on a mantra of the hunter’s name.

When he figures out she was hung, will he grieve and move on? Will he let rage build and kill those who killed her? She prays not. He needs to leave this little town and find comfort in the trees.

The day fades away without food or drink, and the men standing outside her door threaten immediate death if she speaks a word or moves too quickly. Without her staff, she cannot perform much magic. When night falls, she lets herself sleep away the heavy sensation in her chest and the sting on her cheek.

It is not a long rest.

Her eyes flash open, awake at the sound of terrified whimpering. The guards at her door are moving nervously. Sitting up in the darkness, she finds the small window, and looks out into a dark night with two men and their guns leveling somewhere off in the darkness.

Howling rises, and the men shout out in fear. Gunfire ignites for short moments but the howls grow closer. Her own heartbeat begins thundering in her chest, wondering if wolves would ever come into the village.

“Shoot it!” One man screams, the other firing away. Their rifles are painfully slow to reload, and they both stumble over their own hands trying to get another bullet ready.

The howling turns to sudden silence. One man looks at her, eyes wider than the moon before raising the barrel of his gun to her face through the window. Stumbling backwards and dropping to the ground, the shot never goes off as another noise grows in the night. Deep growling shakes the very ground and rattles her bones. Pressing underneath the window, she tries to stop her trembling.

Men’s screams turn to sharp screeches and grunts of pain before silence slams upon whatever is outside. The growling ceases when the men’s terrified noises do.

She holds a hand over her mouth, trying to slow her breathing. Creatures of darkness exists, but she would have sense one long ago if it was lurking near the village. Clutching her chest, she imagines the hunter’s hand holding hers. The end is near, but she won’t die completely alone.

Sharp scraping begins ripping at the door. Softly whimpering, she shakily gets to her legs. Whatever attacked the men outside knows she’s here, and she will face it head on. Positioning herself against the wall, she waits for the final blows to tear the door away, letting faint moonlight spill onto the dirt.

Quiet settles, amplifying her racing heart. Trying to control her lung’s tempo, she takes one step forward, and another. Slow strides take her to the doorway, and whatever waits outside.

She gasps, loud and startled, at the blood and the men’s bodies barely in view. Limbs are torn and their faces are unidentifiable, but that is not what makes her freeze in terror.

A large beast, with red russet fur and a long jaw lined with dagger like teeth waits. It is comparable to a wolf save for the monstrous proportions. It is hunched closer to the ground, trying to make itself appear smaller than it actually is as blood drips off its maw. Massive paws hold sharp claws, but it holds stills as she holds back a sob of fear.

Forgetting to breathe, she finally looks to its eyes. A sharp glint, but a light that she once saw shine in firelight before kissing it. A vivid image of the hunter enters her mind, his irises framed in the wolf pelt on top of his head.

“Hanzo.” She gasps again. The beast doesn’t move, save for the small motion of its ears flickering forward.

Her heartbeat slows, understanding that what happens next will be her end or her salvation. Stepping forward, with one hand reaching for the terrifying monster, she leaves the weak safety of the cell and into the open. It does not react until she touches the fur surrounding its neck.

“Hanzo,” she breathes slowly now. Feeling a gentle rumble, she understands the truth. Wiping under her eyes, clearing the one tear drop, she presses against the giant body of fur. All along, he was hiding right in front of her.

He moves slowly, gently nudging her with his snout to his foreleg. In seconds, she understands and grips his fur. She doesn’t look at the dead men, or the blood on his alter body. This village has always been full of fear.

Carefully, the monster moves with her as she begins to find strength in her legs. One hand grips the fur, holding onto him like an anchor as she finds a steady rhythm in her heart. His is patient but gives gentle urging, and she gathers herself enough to begin running beside the great beast.

The village is lost behind them. The woods embrace their forms, and they disappear into the darkness. The howling that filled the air between the trees disappears after that night, and the hunter and witch are never seen again.

**Author's Note:**

> A little Halloween one shot I wanted to do, please R & R!


End file.
